Chancellor will cover porn star’s speaking fee
Admitting he was naive about news media headlines, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow sent a campus-wide message Monday morning announcing he would personally cover a porn star’s speaking fee from her recent campus appearance.
Additionally, at the request of students, parents and community members, Gow said he would invite an antipornography organization to send a speaker to campus later this month.
“Fight the New Drug” is a nonprofit that focuses on effects of pornography as being destructive to individuals and to society. It seeks to raise awareness of that viewpoint, and support individuals who want to stop using pornography, which can become an addiction.
“This will be another way to promote free expression on our campus, and I look forward to attending,” Gow wrote.
Gow last week told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he invited porn actress Nina Hartley for “Free Speech Week” because he wanted to stimulate discussion about an uncomfortable topic and illustrate why free speech is a good thing on a college campus.
The chancellor covered her $5,000 speaking fee for a Nov. 1 appearance from a discretionary fund in his office. That money is drawn from interest earned on funds raised by self-sustaining campus operations such as dining services, parking fees and residence halls.
No student fees or taxpayer dollars were spent, but some students, parents and community members objected to her coming to campus and getting paid to speak.
“Regrettably, in many media headlines and accounts the speaker’s profession completely overwhelmed her message,” Gow told the campus in Monday’s email. “I admit that in inviting her to present to our university I was naive about this possibility and I have learned much from it.”
Gow told the Journal Sentinel last week that he considered Hartley’s $5,000 speaking honorarium “a real value” to provide “a rare perspective we don’t hear every day.”
He said: “Sexuality is a basic human experience, and we are really skittish about talking about it. There are many problems around sexuality, and the only way to address them is to talk about them.”
Three of the top 10 websites by traffic are adult content websites. Two adult content websites are more popular than Twitter, eBay and Wikipedia, Gow said.
As news of Hartley’s appearance spread internationally, sensational headlines grew from what had been a quiet rumbling campus controversy.
“Because so many media accounts have raised concerns about my office’s budget being used to pay an honorarium to this speaker, I am personally compensating the University for the cost of this honorarium,” Gow said Monday.